How long does it take to look at a painting

This is a video work and installation by Skup Palet. The video builds on a common dirty joke, told in a lengthy manner without a firm punch line. The main character in this story is Jussi, stranded in a Crusoe-like manner on an island with only the ship’s dog to accompany him. This until he meets a fat sow, poking about in the wild. The story is illustrated in10 charcoal drawings by the storyteller, presented one by one in a beam of light by his personal assistant. The visualization is playing with the voice-over’s obvious aim below waist and the seriousness around the production and handling of the drawings.
Throughout history, social critique carried out by the fool or the marginalized has used comedy to invert hierarchies and to call attention to trauma. Comedy performs a social function. The joke, the way it is used and received, also in itself reveals power structures. Though based in language, it is infected with the same gender issues as the artistic practice. In the film, the male artistic subject is staged in front of an easel, creating culture; in the joke, Jussi is obsessed with the pleasures provided by the voluminous pig, nature still being so much more appealing than the dressed-up lady coming to his rescue in the end. The use of deliberately dirty humor points at an increased demand of wit – how art making has become an intellectual territory.